Kitty Dunn

R.E.M. REMastered

by Kitty Dunn,posted Aug 8 2011 6:23AM

It had been a while since I had listened to my CD of Life's Rich Pageant. So when I threw the new 25th anniversary remastered CD into my Bose Wave radio, I wasn't sure how it compared to the old one.
I listened to the album A LOT when it first came out. How I even came to own it is actually kind of a funny story. I'll cut to the chase. I wanted Robert Palmer's Riptide for Christmas, but my younger brother bought me Life's Rich Pageant instead, because it was better. And what do you know, he was right!
Listening to this album again reminded me of how I listened to R.E.M. back in the day, on vinyl. I really had no idea what any of the songs were about, and for the most part couldn't understand what exactly Michael Stipe was singing.
A lot of phrases of the songs stuck in my head back then..like "this is where we walked, this is where we swam, take a picture here, take a souvenir." "My sweet hyena..." "Run and turn into butter."
After I listened to the CD I put my old one in for comparison purposes, and sonically, the new one is a big improvement. If you're just going to load it onto your iPod, I'm not sure its worth rebuying..but if you have a good stereo or even a Bose CD player like I do, it's worth it to get the upgrade. The remastering sounds great...not different, just better..less tinny, more full.
The bonus CD that came with it was a disappointment. It's made up of 19 songs from a previously unreleased concert, and for the most part sounds too much like the record..and includes early versions of some stuff that would show up on later records! The last song is kind of interesting. "Get On That Way" is an earlier version of "What if we Give It Away," so I guess it's somewhat cool to hear it with different words.
A big fan of R.E.M.? Go buy this 2 CD set. A so-so fan who already owns the CD? Keep the one you've got. Just discovering the band and want to see what the fuss was about before they started singing stuff like "Shiny Happy People?" You should go buy this. They really were quite good.
And so much better than Robert Palmer singing "Addicted to Love."

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